What's in a nickname?

The New Orleans Hornets are going to become the New Orleans Pelicans, which, in turn, could turn the Charlotte Bobcats back into the Charlotte Hornets. This is what passes for a hot story this time of year.

The New Orleans Hornets are going to become the New Orleans Pelicans, which, in turn, could turn the Charlotte Bobcats back into the Charlotte Hornets.

This is what passes for a hot story this time of year.

The announcement created a craze on social media, which separates it from, uh, nothing else. Twitter would go wild if Alabama and Mississippi State became embroiled in a snit over which shade of red is darker.

In addition to rampant optimism regarding the potential return of teal, purple and pleated shorts to Charlotte, quite a bit of traffic was devoted to ridiculing the notion of a basketball team being named Pelicans. Someone suggested the cheer “Snap up those fish with your … uh … beak pouch, you … feathery … birds … you!”

It might take a bit of tweaking.

On the other hand, Pelicans are actually indigenous to Louisiana. A few frightened fowl may have even wandered into the Big Easy on occasion, undoubtedly much to their alarm and chagrin.

You’d stand a much better chance of encountering Pelicans in New Orleans than Grizzlies in Memphis, Jazz in Salt Lake, or, for that matter, Lakers in Los Angeles.

Team nicknames are crazy. You can’t make them worse.

For instance, as best I know – and Lord knows, there may be some obscure facts of which I am unaware – “celtic” is an adjective instead of a noun, and so it ought to be the Boston Celts instead of the Celtics, and it ought to be pronounced “kelts.” But Celts are Irish and kilts are Scottish, so no one should have to worry about bagpipes, anyway.

Not to pick on the NBA. Cardinals show up in Arizona about as rarely as, well, its football team does on Sundays. In hockey, Florida can at least boast of Panthers, though endangered every bit as much as the sport happens to be this particular winter. The Carolinas have no Panthers, and there hasn’t been much of a growl in Bank of America Stadium this year, either.

Quick, tell me why Oklahoma is Sooner and not later, why inoffensive and inedible nuts represent THE Ohio State University, and why, in that particular place, Tulsa is named for Hurricanes and not tornadoes. It’s easy to dodge the trolleys of L.A. The most appropriate mascot used to be Bullets when they were in Washington, but now that team is known as the Wizards, which emphatically they aren’t. I know little about Indiana except that it is unquestionably Hoosier than any other state.

Private schools have a more academic route to absurdity. The old Georgetown cheer was “hoya saxa!” which, in Latin, means “what a rock!” Unfortunate, the word for rock is “saxa,” which means, Latin speaking, the Georgetown Hoyas are the, uh, Whats.